Best programming and hacker quotes. Ever.
Curated by fellow hackers Jarmo Pertman & Andri Möll
Over the centuries the Indians developed sign language for communicating phenomena of interest. Programmers from different tribes (FORTRAN, LISP, ALGOL, SNOBOL, etc.) could use one that doesn't require them to carry a blackboard on their ponies.
Alan J. Perlis
Good programmers never write what they can steal or borrow.
Jeff Atwood
Never trust a programmer in a suit.
Anonymous
[The common definition of estimate is] "An estimate is the most optimistic prediction that has a non-zero probability of coming true" . . . Accepting this definition leads irrevocably toward a method called what's-the-earliest- date-by-which-you-can't-prove-you-won't-be- finished estimating.
Tom DeMarco
The key to performance is elegance, not battalions of special cases.
Jon Bentley and Doug McIlroy
The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree, is by accident. That's where we come in; we're computer professionals. We cause accidents.
Nathaniel Borenstein
It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.
Alan J. Perlis
A good system can't have a weak command language.
Alan J. Perlis
I will not be a lemming and follow the crowd over the cliff and into the C.
John Beidler
I have found that the reason a lot of people are interested in artificial intelligence is the same reason a lot of people are interested in artificial limbs: they are missing one.
David Parnas